Leo Abrahams - 'The Grape and The Grain' (Just Music) Released 23/03/09

On realising that Leo Abrahams’ The Grape & The Grain is a purely instrumental album, Gigwise professes a slight anxiety that there will not be enough to say about it. However, three tracks in and all anxiety has vanished.

Having worked as a session guitarist with artists as diverse as Roxy Music and Ed Harcourt, and subsequently praised for his organic debut Honeytrap and criticised for his self-conscious attempt at orchestrating an album with well-known vocalists, Abrahams here comes into his own and displays a pure, unforced musicianship.

Embellished with other strings in turn including a violin and a cello, the album is focused for the most part on the simple chord changes and gentle tales told by the guitar. Stripped down to the vocal-free roots used as a backdrop to most beautiful music, The Grape & The Grain makes it possible to concentrate on the imagery that is struck up by the instruments alone.

There is a plodding, weary sentiment surrounding Northern Jane, perhaps an ode to a lover lost, and a faster-paced but equally dramatic feeling attached to Spring Snow nearer the beginning, made less eerie by the inclusion of a sprightly piano crescendo. Blind sums up the appeal of the album, withdrawing the listener into herself with its precise finger-picking and slowing string melody like the soundtrack to an invisible film. New Wine takes hints from the folk tradition and mixes it with an offbeat jazz effect, while Ends Meet  evokes the urgency of somebody running up an escalator. The less predictably arranged title track keeps the listener guessing as to where they might be taken next and conjures up images of the view from a train window as the vaguely familiar landscape whizzes by. A Ghost on Every Corner steals the crown for the most affecting track, taking Gigwise on an imaginary journey through a city’s streets and achieving the kind of soulful richness that would usually require lyrics.

This collection of tight compositions will come as a pleasing surprise to singer-songwriter evangelists who will be far less bored by it than they expect. The perfect album to wind down to at the end of a heavy weekend, The Grape & The Grain encases a talent often overlooked when the man behind it  stood in the shadow of greats such as Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry.